


Chasing Viridian

by keraunoscopia



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Artists, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fluff, Implied Slash, M/M, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-03
Updated: 2017-11-03
Packaged: 2019-01-28 19:23:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12613680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keraunoscopia/pseuds/keraunoscopia
Summary: For as long as he could remember, he had been drawn to creation, his hands moving in certain rhythm, shaping paper and graphite, or crayon, or ink into new worlds. There was something therapeutic about capturing snapshots, moments, instants on paper, recorded for time immemorial, not the way it was, but the way he saw it.





	Chasing Viridian

**Author's Note:**

> So I have the third chapter to 'Cause Blue Eyes written but its in my notebook in my locker on campus currently so I can't type it up yet. So here's this instead. This was supposed to be a quick little AU. And then escalated. Quickly. Hope you enjoy.

Sonny Carisi saw the world in pastel hues, blending together with broad strokes and soft edges. For as long as he could remember, he had been drawn to creation, his hands moving in certain rhythm, shaping paper and graphite, or crayon, or ink into new worlds. There was something therapeutic about capturing snapshots, moments, instants on paper, recorded for time immemorial, not the way it was, but the way he saw it. And despite all of the skepticism, and doubt, and “why not choose a practical profession,” he had insisted on going to art school upon graduation. As far as he was concerned, there hadn’t been a viable alternative, not if he wanted to be happy. And he was only ever really happy with chalk pastels, or a paintbrush, or a pencil in his hand. 

He started street art while still in school at NYU. Not the tagging sort of street art, but he’d drag his easel, and his box of pastels and a huge pad of paper down to Central Park, or Time Square when the weather was nice, and he’d sit for a while, drawing cityscapes, capturing the hum and pulse of the people passing by. And he took requests, it was good money, helped to pay for the supplies he needed for school, and his sanity. Portrait after portrait, always realism, never cartoon. Tourists loved it, a keepsake from the big apple, one of a kind, and everyone was always amazed at how quickly he could capture a person’s likeness, like he was taking a snapshot of their soul. 

He painted too, when it was too cold, or too windy or too rainy to set up shop on a street. He would sit in front of the giant windows in his little studio loft apartment of crumbling brick and exposed ventilation, and he would paint, from the moment the golden rays first crested the city sky line to the last bit of dusty pink before the dark consumed it. And, even then, he’d work by incandescent glow until he was satisfied that a piece was finished, sometimes up late enough to confuse coffee and paint water, before collapsing into bed with acrylic, or oil, and gesso smeared across his skin and clothes. 

He really wouldn’t have had it any other way. But still, the paintings he was able to sell, online, or to galleries, or to tourists on the streets wasn’t enough of an income to maintain his run down little loft in Bushwick, not after he graduated with his Bachelor’s in Fine Arts and could no longer depend on loan money to pay the rent. 

It wasn’t actually even his idea, a friend of his, an artist he had met at a gallery opening back in college had called him up one day with an offer. “They need someone to cover the Hollings trial, down at the court house tomorrow,” he had said. “A news channel contacted me to do some court room sketches but I’m out of town, if you’re not busy, could you cover it?” His friend had asked. Sonny wavered, no idea what exactly it would entail. “Look its easy money, for a trial of this size, you could probably get a couple thousand per sketch.” A couple thousand was still ringing in Sonny’s ears when he agreed and hung up the phone. 

He had spent the rest of the night on google images, scrolling through thousands and thousands of courtroom sketches, trying to get a feel for what he was actually supposed to do. When he showed up at the court house in the morning, his heavy box of pastels in one hand, and a sketchpad in the other, the court officers didn’t even give him a second glance, and he took a seat in the gallery, towards the right hand side in hopes of getting a good angle to see as much as possible. 

The proceedings had been a blur, five hours of testimony with only a thirty-minute break for lunch, and when the judge finally declared a recess, that they would reconvene in the morning, he had pastel dust on his hands, jeans, even his face, but he also had seven sketches to show for it. The smarmy look on the defendant’s face when a witness took the stand, captured for antiquity, another with the prosecutor and defense attorney standing at the bench, heads bowed in towards each other as they whispered inaudibly, the giant crocodile tears of one of the character witnesses. Sonny hadn’t really been able to follow exactly what was going on in the proceedings, couldn’t exactly tell who was who, but that ignorance was nowhere to be found in the blended details of his sketches. 

He was approached before he could even finish walking out the door of the courtroom with his pad of paper, and box of pastels. “I’m with News Channel Four, you were the courtroom sketch artist?” the man had asked, and though he seemed a little slimy for Sonny’s taste, he had traded four of the seven drawings for a few stacks of crisp one hundred dollar bills. 

The other three didn’t make it out of the courthouse either, LMZ ambushed him before he could even spot the front door, and he felt a little uncomfortable, shoving the stacks of cash, and the check from LMZ into his bag. He headed straight for the bank and settled his overdraft fees before he headed to the art supply store to finally stock up again. 

He had no idea how News Channel Four got his phone number, but all of a sudden, he felt like the only artist in the world capable of covering trials, because they offered him huge lump sums up front for trial after trial. At first it had felt cheap, cheaper than drawing portraits of tourists on the street, felt like nothing more than a stylized camera, covering the trials held in closed courtrooms where the press wasn’t allowed in with their equipment. But there was also a certain poetry to it, capturing those moments of vulnerability, of rage, of deceit. He liked the juxtaposition of the self assured attorneys and the witnesses, trembling on the stand, and the judges lording over them like they had reached the pearly gates. 

He got better at it too, once he had covered a couple of trials. The court officers started to recognize him, gave him information, tips, about who was who and how the court room was set up, what sort of proceedings were going on. He knew to be prepared when the defendants would appear for only moments during arraignment, knew that he’d have to commit features to memory before sketching out the scene before him, because it would be gone as soon as his eyes closed. 

Sonny was stunned when a national news outlet contacted him early one Sunday morning. He had put up a website several months ago to make it easier for news channels to reach out to him to cover trials. He preferred choosing his own trials to cover, selling the sketches he produced only after court had adjourned for the day, and it was lucrative enough, but it was always more profitable when the news channels sought him out with particular requests. 

“We’re interested in the Adam Cain trial,” the news outlet had told him. He wasn’t surprised in the least. Adam Cain was incredibly famous, the coverage the pending trial had received already guaranteed there’d be a market for courtroom sketches whether or not they allowed cameras into the gallery. 

“I’ve had a lot of interest in that trial, are you looking for exclusive coverage?” Sonny had asked. He wasn’t the most proficient negotiator, but he had picked up a few tactics from all of his time spent in the courtroom. 

“We’re willing to pay five thousand a sketch for exclusive.” The spokesperson for the national news outlet replied. Sonny dropped his phone. He’d never heard a figure quite that high. “Hello?” 

The last bit was muffled and Sonny scrambled to pick the phone back up from the twisted sheets of his bed, still in the crumbling studio loft. “Yeah, yeah. You got it. How many are you looking for total?” He couldn’t believe his ears. He knew he’d be set for the rest of the year if they wanted as many sketches as the news channels usually did. 

“Depends on how long the trial goes,” the voice replied impartially. “As many as five a day.” Piece of cake. He agreed, and took down the contact information, scribbled in colored pencil on the back side of an old doodle. 

Sonny had long since learned how awful it was trying to lug around his supplies while in a rush, so he arrived at the courthouse almost an hour early, the pad of paper under his arm, his box of pastels and graphite in his bag. The security officers at the entrance to the courthouse gave him a knowing nod and let him slip through the metal detectors with out a hassle. “You hear for the Cain trial, Sonny?” a hulking tree of a man had asked him. 

Sonny flashed his charming smile and nodded. “You think I’d miss this?” He laughed. “You guys better give him a hard time on his way in, Joe.” He clapped the security guard on the back with his free hand and headed into the courthouse. He had expected the courtroom to be empty, it was the first and only case on the docket for the day and usually not even the clerks bothered to be there an hour early. He swung the door open and stepped inside, startled to see a man in a suit pacing around in front of the witness stand. 

He frowned but stepped inside anyway. The man didn’t even turn to look at him, so Sonny figured he probably wasn’t a bother as he took his usual seat in the wooden pew of the gallery. He sat his bag down next to him on the bench and pulled out his pastels, arranging them methodically. He always had them in the same order, always made sure to have them on his right side, easy access so he could sketch as quickly as possible. He stretched his hand, clenching his fist a few times, cracked his knuckles. For as much wear and tear his hand received, he knew he was blessed to not have any signs of carpal tunnel or arthritis. He knew far too many painters, artists crippled later in life. Sonny was sure he’d rather die young than grow so old he couldn’t draw anymore. 

He flipped the cover of his drawing pad and leaned it against the back of the seat in front of him, smoothing down the stark white paper. He loved to draw, loved to create, but there was something so inherently beautiful, pure, about the feeling of unblemished, unmarked paper. With a soft hum, he looked up to glance at his company. He could still hear the click of heels against the stone floors of the court house and knew he was still pacing before he even laid eyes on the man. He had to be an attorney, Sonny was sure of that because no one else in their right mind would be in the courtroom that early. And attorneys were never really of their right mind anyway. 

The man was turned away from him, face pointed determinedly at the ground, but Sonny knew he didn’t recognize the man. He knew all of the prosecutors who graced the courthouse, had drawn them all on more than one occasion, had committed their frames to memory, and he knew many of the defense attorneys, the ones who showed up with any amount of regularity. 

The man in front of him, short statured, but broad shoulders and clean suit lines, he was an unfamiliarity. That didn’t particularly surprise Sonny though, he had never covered a trial of this magnitude, it was more than likely that they had pulled out the big guns, brought in the DA himself or something, or some famous defense attorney who didn’t usually take cases in the city. He shook his head to clear his thoughts and lifted a piece of graphite out of his pastel box and began sketching the man from behind, the back drop of the wooden paneled bench and witness stand. 

When court was called to order, he still hadn’t caught a glimpse of the attorney’s face, but he stood to introduce himself as Rafael Barba, an ADA, and that caught Sonny by surprise, but he hid his expression and began to sketch Adam Cain, sitting next to his defense attorney. 

It wasn’t until the end of opening statements when the ADA, Barba, finally turned around long enough for Sonny to catch a glimpse of his face. His hand froze, hovering over the blank white page with black pastel, he had intended on committing the face to memory to translate onto his paper, but he couldn’t move his hand. There was something incredibly captivating about the smug, self-satisfied expression he had caught on the ADA’s face with a flash of bright beryl green eyes. Sonny tried to swallow, his throat suddenly as dry as sandpaper. 

He gestured around the paper trying to figure out how exactly to draw the image that had been imprinted into his retinas, but his hand was failing him. The first witness took the stand, and Sonny sighed audibly, resigning himself to sketching the woman as the defense attorney badgered her during cross, but his gaze fell back on the ADA, on the back of his head, dark hair perfectly combed, suit collar perfectly straight, the fabric of his jacket lying perfectly flat, like the man had been sculpted with Bernini like precision. Sonny’s hand was smoothing out the crisp lines of his backdrop when Barba turned around, craning his neck like he was looking for someone sitting in the gallery. Their eyes locked, just for a split second, and the snapping sound of his chalk pastel rang in his ears, like the whole court room had gone quiet save the snapping. 

It hadn’t though, it just seemed like that to him, and the ADA looked away as quickly as he had caught Sonny’s eye. Sonny flipped the page of his sketchpad, knew that he wouldn’t be satisfied until he could capture him in dusty pigment. The ADA rose from his seat, beginning his questioning of Cain, and Sonny’s hands froze again, totally drawn into the theatrics of the questioning. “As a regular Joe, I am curious about how this belt-around- the-neck thing is exciting.” Sonny swallowed hard as the ADA looked back at the gallery, walking towards the pews as he unfastened his belt. “Let me see how she liked it,” the ADA continued, looping the leather belt around his own neck, standing with his back to the defendant. “All right, take the belt in your hands, Mr. Cain… Feel the leather? Hold the belt… Now, show me how you pulled on the belt.” Sonny almost couldn’t believe his eyes as the ADA goaded the man on the stand into choking him. 

He let his eyes fall to the paper as rasping coughs echoed in the caverns of the courtroom, and the image was burned in to his eyes well enough to drag the snapped half of his pastel over the page. 

The trial concluded with a guilty verdict, but Sonny couldn’t bring himself to be surprised after what he had witnessed in the courtroom, frankly, he was surprised the jury had been out for as long as it had. And the crowd in the courtroom dispersed even more quickly. He took his time gathering back together his supplies, packing them away before flipping through the sketches he had managed to color over the past few days. Plenty to keep the media satisfied, but his hands fell to the last one in his pile, the ADA facing forward, back to the defendant, both of their hands on the worn leather belt. A wave of guilt washed over him, a sensationalized depiction of the handsome man, he knew better than anyone that if he turned the picture over to the national news channel, it was going to be plastered everywhere in a matter of days. He glanced back at the door and gave himself only a split second to decide. 

He left his bag, the other drawings, and took only the sheet of paper as he sprinted through the door. He could see the sway of hips, the short stature at the far end of the hall, walking at a pace much too fast for any normal human being. “Counselor!” Sonny called to get his attention before he slipped away into the crowd. “Counselor!” He called again, and the man paused, spinning on his heel to face the sound. 

“Who are you?” he had asked, the words harsh like a mouth full of razor blades. 

“Sorry, I’m Sonny,” he replied, coming to a halt in front of the man. “I uh,” he held up the paper, still folded loosely in half, not wanting to crease it. “I’m a courtroom sketch artist.” He sucked in a breath, the short sprint had taken the wind out of him, or at least that was the lie he was going to stick with. “It didn’t feel right giving this to the media.” He held the drawing out to the man, and he took it with a side eye and skepticism. “You can have it.”

Barba unfolded the page, eyes glancing over the image that Sonny’s expert hand had captured. If it took him by surprise, he didn’t show it, only nodded. “Thank you.” And he spun on his heels and walked away. 

It was nearly three weeks later when Sonny laid eyes on the ADA again. He hadn’t intended on staying away from the courthouse for that long, but his sister Theresa had insisted that the latest guy was “the one” and had demanded that they all return to Staten Island for a wedding which had been cancelled at the last minute, and he had been stuck cleaning up the pieces and taking her on a trip to New England to get her mind off things. And when he had returned to the city, he had a bunch of gallery owners to meet with to try and schedule a show of his latest series of paintings. And then another week had passed, sitting in the gallery pews without any sign of the ADA. 

Sonny had pretty much given up any hope of seeing the man again, convinced that he must have misheard the man identified as an ADA. But then, there he was, pacing in front of the witness stand the same as last time when Sonny settled himself into the gallery. They exchanged no words, Barba didn’t seem to realize he was even there, and Sonny certainly wasn’t about to draw the man out of his focus before a trial.

It was a good thing, Sonny thought to himself as he looked through his sketches at the end of the day, that he hadn’t been there on behalf of any news outlet. It would be difficult to explain why every single sketch he had managed to get down that day had featured beryl green eyes and a perfectly tied charcoal grey tie. He growled aloud, but mostly to himself as he flipped to the next sketch, another depiction of the man, arm casually leaning on the witness stand like a Siamese cat trying to lure a mouse out of it’s hole. 

Sonny generally didn’t plan what he was going to capture when he went into a trial, variety was helpful in selling to the media, but he usually just tried to get down some of the impressions he got during the trial, the moments that sparked the most. The pile of sketches was a little too much of an admission of guilt as to where his mind had really been, and he didn’t even bother to pick them up when he headed out of the courthouse, just left them lying on the bench. 

The next time he shared the same air with Rafael Barba, he didn’t see the ADA, but the ADA certainly saw him. The train had been peculiarly on time, and he had arrived at the courthouse with even more time to spare than usual, and he hadn’t bothered to check the court schedule to see what the cases were going to be for the day, but he settled into his favorite spot, arranging his supplies meticulously when a stack of papers was unceremoniously dropped in his lap. 

“Are you stalking me?” The words were accusing but the tone sounded amused, and Sonny looked up to meet those bright green eyes. 

“What? No, of course not,” he had sputtered, a little too quickly, a little too scattered to absolve him. Sonny dropped his gaze to the sketch on top of the pile. Really, it was a beautiful piece of art in its own right, though that wasn’t exactly the goal of courtroom sketching. He had captured the moment perfectly, speaking volumes about the way the room had felt at that particular moment. 

“Then what’s with the stack of creep shots left around for all the world to see?” Barba had replied with a snip, and Sonny had never really imagined he’d be on this side of a tongue lashing from the astute ADA. His face just flushed in response. 

“Its my job to draw what happens here,” he gestured to nothing in particular, but his resolve was forming. “I don’t have a method, I just draw what catches my eye.” A smirk almost tugged at the corner of his mouth, but he bit it back, not wanting to reveal his whole hand if he could help it, and he wasn’t sure he could. 

“So I’ve caught your eye.” Smug. Arrogant. Frustrating. 

But beautiful. 

“You could say that.” Sonny sighed, there was no point denying it when there was a stack of evidence in front of him and a prosecutor who could probably convince a jury that Santa was a murderer. 

That haughty smirk again. 

“Well, buy me a drink after court and maybe I’ll even pose for you.” 

Sonny’s jaw dropped unabashed and unable to formulate a response as the doors to the court room swung open and people began to file in, Barba practically waltzing back to his seat before he could agree or decline. 

The docket wasn’t set for trials, Sonny realized, only arraignments and Barba had swept out of the room as soon as the defendant in his case had been remanded, leaving the artist to wonder if the ADA had even been serious about his proposal, but he tried to shake the thought from his mind. He had the rest of the day to get through, and couldn’t really afford to skip the opportunity to sell more court drawings anyway. 

It was a few minutes past five o’clock when court was finally adjourned for the day, and Sonny began packing up his supplies, the same routine, methodical and calculated. He might have been a mess most of the time, still confused paint water and coffee, still fell asleep with gesso crusting in his hair line sometimes, but he was careful about his art supplies. 

“So are you going to buy me a drink?” The voice echoed in the empty courtroom and Sonny couldn’t tell exactly where it had come from at first, until he spotted the ADA, his suit jacket cast casually over his arm, sleeves rolled up precisely, suspenders resting on his shoulders.  


“You were serious,” it didn’t come out like a question even though he meant it to be one. The ADA just nodded, an amused smirk on his face. “I’ve got all my supplies, you really want to be seen with me?” Sonny wasn’t sure, but he thought he saw Barba’s face soften for just a split second. 

“If you don’t want to bring all of that with you, you can leave it in my office across the street,” Barba replied like he was just contemplating it at that moment, but Sonny was skeptical. 

“Lead the way.”

It was nearly forty minutes and a not insignificant amount of banter later when the pair finally took their seats at the bar, an expensive looking place that Sonny was sure was going to make a dent in the thick wad of hundreds he had in his pocket, since he hadn’t had a chance to go to the bank after selling some of his sketches. “Two of whatever he wants,” Sonny smiled at the bartender as she flitted over to them, a little mousey, undeniably beautiful, but she couldn’t hold his attention for long, not when there was the enigma of a man sitting next to him, their thighs so close they were almost brushing against each other. 

“Scotch, neat, whatever you’ve got that isn’t well,” Barba replied, and Sonny almost rolled his eyes at how much of a stereotype he embodied. 

“A scotch man,” Sonny observed aloud, “I would have pegged you as a prohibition-era cocktail enthusiast,” he chucked, settling back into his stool as he pulled his money clip out of his pocket. He was acutely aware of how underdressed he seemed in comparison to the rest of the patrons of the bar, likely all attorneys or the wall street business types, nearly everyone was wearing a suit, though none so successfully as the man at his right. 

“I can’t say I never dallied,” Barba replied, bringing the glass of scotch to his lips. “Though I couldn’t say that about most things.” 

Sonny nearly choked on his sip of scotch. An inherently visual person, he couldn’t stop the barrage of images that the innocent comment had conjured up. Barba just smirked, and Sonny figured maybe the comment wasn’t so innocent after all. 

It was four drinks later when they stumbled out of a cab and into the elevator of Barba, now Rafael’s, apartment, skin pressed against skin, his lips on Rafael’s jaw, and neck, teeth leaving little marks that he wouldn’t be able to cover come morning. 

The moon had cast an eerie glow through the open windows of Rafael’s bedroom as the ADA fell asleep in a tangle of sheets, skin still glowing like it had been kissed by morning dew, and Sonny just couldn’t help himself. He rose from the plush mattress and slid his crumpled boxers back on before padding out of the bedroom as quietly as he could. Surely the man had to have a piece of paper and a pencil around there somewhere, and Sonny grew more and more frustrated as he rifled through the desk drawer, careful not to look at anything. 

He smirked as he found an unused stack of copy paper, and grabbed a pencil off the desk, not quite sharp enough for his tastes, but it would do, and when he returned to the bedroom, he cursed the decision to leave his pastels behind at the man’s office. Instead, he settled himself into the armchair against the wall, and took a moment to appreciate the sight in front of him. Far too often he had to rush, had to get as much down in his memory and on the paper before the sight was gone from him forever. But he had time, let his gaze wander brazenly over the curves of Rafael’s shoulders, the dip of his waist and soft rise of his hips, the muscles in his back relaxed, but still visible against olive skin. 

The pencil moved lazily over the paper, taking shape with a slow, purposeful precision. He looked up again as the springs of the bed groaned, and Rafael rolled over, eyes fluttering open, still heavy with sleep. “Are you drawing me?” It was the softest Sonny had ever heard the man’s voice, usually so brazen and commanding. 

“Yes,” he had nodded affirmatively, offering no further explanation. Rafael pushed himself up, letting the silk sheets cascade down his skin, and he walked over to Sonny, craning his neck to see the drawing.

“We should do this again.”

“Absolutely.”

**Author's Note:**

> If you were wondering, the title is in reference to both viridian the pigment in reference to Sonny being an artist, and viridian as in green like Rafael's eyes. Also I'm just incapable of writing smut. I wanted to, I tried, I failed.


End file.
